Burlington, the chief Vermont city, is built on the sloping hillside
of a grandly curving bay, making a resemblance to Naples and its bay,
which has inspired a local poet to address the city as "Thou lovely
Naples of our midland sea." It has fifteen thousand people, and its
prosperity has been largely from the lumber trade, the logs coming
chiefly from Canadian and Adirondack forests. It is attractive, with
broad tree-embowered streets, the elm and maple growing in luxuriance,
while the hills run up behind the town into high summits. One of
these, the College Hill, rising nearly four hundred feet, has the fine
buildings of the University of Vermont, attended by six hundred
students, its tower giving a superb outlook over Lake Champlain, which
at sunset is one of the most gorgeous scenes ever looked upon.
Lafayette laid the corner-stone of this college on his American visit
in 1825, and his statue in sturdy bronze adorns the grounds. The
finest college building is the Billings Library, presented by
Frederick Billings, a projector, and once President of the Northern
Pacific Railway. All about these hills there are attractive villas and
estates, enjoying the view, of which President Dwight wrote, when
wandering over New England in search of the historic and picturesque,
that "splendor of landscape is the peculiar boast of Burlington." On
the northern verge of College Hill is the city's burial-place of the
olden time--Green Mount Cemetery. Here Ethan Allen is buried, a tall
Tuscan monument surmounted by a statue marking the spot, which is
enclosed by a curious fence made of cannon at the corners and muskets
with fixed bayonets. Allen lived at Burlington during his later life,
dying there in February, 1789.
College Hill falls off to the northward to a broad intervale, down
which winds the romantic Winooski or Onion River, flowing into Lake
Champlain a short distance above Burlington. It comes out of a gorge
in the Green Mountains, where it falls down pretty cascades and
rapids. This Winooski gorge was a dreaded defile in the early days of
the New England frontier, for by this route the fierce Hurons came
through those mountains from Champlain and Canada to make forays upon
the Massachusetts and New Hampshire border settlements. This gorge
passes between Mount Mansfield and the Camel's Hump. To the northward
is the noted "Smuggler's Notch" beyond the Chin of Mansfield, between
it and Mount Sterling beyond, the name having been given because in
the olden time contraband goods were brought through its gloomy
recesses from Canada into New England. An affluent of the Winooski,
the Waterbury River, comes out of this notch, a rapid stream. Upon the
upper Winooski is Montpelier, the Vermont State Capital, pleasantly
situated among the mountains near the centre of the commonwealth. Its
State House is a fine structure of light granite, surmounted by a
lofty dome. Massive Doric columns support its grand portico, under
which stands the statue, in Vermont marble, of Ethan Allen, by
Vermont's great sculptor, Larkin G. Mead. Here are also two old cannon
which Stark captured from the Hessians at Bennington. They were
afterwards used by the Americans with good effect throughout the
Revolution, and subsequently were part of the army equipment taken to
the western frontier. In the War of 1812 the British captured them in
Hull's surrender at Detroit, but they were recaptured in a subsequent
battle in Canada, and were sent as trophies to Washington. Congress
ultimately gave them to Vermont, and they were placed in the State
Capitol as relics of the battle of Bennington. Admiral George Dewey is
a native of Montpelier, born there December 26, 1837. St. Albans, a
great railroad centre and market for dairy products, is north of
Burlington, near Lake Champlain, a picturesque New England town, with
the elm-shaded central square. It is fourteen miles from the Canada
border, and an important customs station. Of it, Henry Ward Beecher
wrote that "St. Albans is a place in the midst of greater variety of
scenic beauty than any other I remember in America."